e's age might have been anywhere from
fifteen to thirty-five; for the twisted and misshapen body, angular and
hard; the scrawny, wry neck; the old-young face, thin and sallow, with
furtive, beady-black eyes, gave no hint of her years. As a matter of
fact, I happened to know that Judith Taylor, daughter of the notorious
Ozark moonshiner, Jap Taylor, was just past twenty the year she went to
live with Auntie Sue.

Looking obliquely at the old gentlewoman, with a curious expression of
mingled defiance, suspicion, and affection on her almost vicious face,
Judy drawled, "Was you-all a-yellin' for me?"

"Yes, Judy; I want you to help me watch the sunset," Auntie Sue
answered, with bright animation; and, turning, she pointed toward the
glowing west,--"Look!"

Judy's sly, evasive eyes did not cease to regard the illumined face of
her old companion as she returned, in her dry, high-pitched monotone: "I
don't reckon as how you-all are a-needin' much help, seein' as how you
are allus a-watchin' hit. A body'd think you-all was mighty nigh old
'nough, by now, ter look at hit alone."

Auntie Sue laughed, a low, musical, chuckling laugh, and, with a hint
of loving impatience in her gentle voice, replied to Judy's observation:
"But, don't you understand, child? It adds so to one's happiness
to share lovely scenes like this. It makes it all so much--so
much--well,--BIGGER, to have some one enjoy it with you. Come, dear!"
And she held out her hand with a gesture of entreaty, and a look
of yearning upon her dear old face that no human being could have
withstood.

Judy, still slyly watchful, went cautiously nearer; and Auntie Sue,
putting an arm lovingly about the crooked shoulders of the mountain
girl, pointed again toward the west as she said, in a low voice that
vibrated with emotion, "Look, Judy! Look!"

The black eyes shifted, and the old-young, expressionless face turned
toward the landscape, which lay before them in all its wondrous beauty
of glowing sky and tinted mountain and gleaming river. And there might
have been a faint touch of softness, now, in the querulous monotone
as Judy said: "I can't see as how hit could be ary bigger. Hain't ary
reason, as I kin see, why hit should be ary bigger if hit could. Lord
knows there's 'nough of hit as 't is; rough 'nough, too, as you-all 'd
sure know if you-all had ter trapse over them there hills all yer life
like I've had ter."

"But, isn't it wonderful to-night, Judy? It seems t